Broadband Update

John Stockdale has provided this very helpful informal update on the Parish’s broadband services.

Veronica Parker reported earlier this year on the Bentworth PC website and via my emails that:

“The good news is that superfast broadband is definitely coming to Bentworth as part of the wave 2 roll out. The bad news is that it is not going to get here very quickly and not everyone will get access. The initial planning will not be completed until September and currently there is no expected date for the work to start.”

The BT upgrade is done cabinet by cabinet and 10 of the 13 cabinets on the Medstead exchange have now been upgraded covering most of Medstead and Four Marks.

Most people within the centre of Bentworth are connected to cabinet 12 on Bentworth village green. However, houses from Veronica Parker’s and we believe everyone else who is closer to Medstead than that are not, they are connected to cabinet 8 next to the bus shelter near Medstead Hardware (that makes it probably about 1.5 km from New Copse crossroads and 3 kms from Veronica’s). Obviously some other houses further from the centre of Bentworth may be connected to other cabinets or exchanges, e.g. Burkham, Wivelrod, with better or worse chances of upgrades and speeds.

There is now a page on the HCC website entitled “Wave 2 Announced” http://www.hampshiresuperfastbroadband.com/about-the-project/wave-2-information/. This says that wave 2 will be implemented between January 2016 and September 2018. It identifies 5 Phases and says that during the Phase 4 delivery period they “will be providing fibre to premises in parts of the following exchange areas”, including Medstead. This should include cabinets 8 and 12.

And Phase 4 is planned for July 2017 – June 2018.

So it could be June 2018 before most of us get superfast broadband from BT– even if things go according to plan (and I don’t think they did during Wave 1).

Notes:

If you go to http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ and put in your telephone number it will tell you which cabinet/exchange you are on.

After cabinet upgrade, you will have to subscribe to a new service through your existing or new service provider and you need a new router. The speed you get will depend on the distance (cable length) from the cabinet, typically as follows:

– 40 Mbps at 100 metres

– 12 Mbps at 1 km

– 8 Mbps at 2 km

– 4 Mbps at 3 km

Note that the quoted speeds were amended 25/10/15 to reflect fresh information.

[Please note that this message is not posted on behalf of Bentworth Parish Council and does not necessarily reflect the Parish Council’s policy]